PhorcefulAhead

Hindsight may always be 20/20, but it never ceases to be a near infallible judge of what constitutes greatness versus what is either forgettable or unforgettably terrible. Insofar as the height of the power metal revival of the new millennium, the blots upon the good name of the genre were relatively few, and even less so when considering the arguable birthplace of said revival in Germany. Nevertheless, one of the more notorious figures to crawl its way from underneath a legion of superior bands and procure a long term contract with Metal Blade Records and all the visibility that goes with it, Symphorce, provides one of the clearest examples of how the style can be transmogrified into something all but unrecognizable to power metal fans. Originally the brainchild of vocalist Andy B. Franck (of Brainstorm fame) after a respectable run with the progressive outfit Ivanhoe, this band never really managed to close the deal on creating something truly memorable during a two album stint with Noise Records, and subsequently opted for a new approach with the release of their third studio offering and dumbly named PhorcefulAhead.

To be fair, this album has a number of power metal mannerisms to it that parallel Brainstorm's early 2000s work with Franck in the fold, but overall it listens closer to a poor man's Nevermore and takes about as many cues musically from Dead Heart In A Dead World as it does Metus Mortis. Cede Dupont, arguably one of the most banal players in metal, brings a very down-tuned and lazy approach to playing that would match Jeff Loomis if it were about three-hundred percent more technically proficient and blessed with Andy Sneap's mixing magic. Apart from Dupont, most of the lineup present are new to the fold, and the performances reflect a high degree of inexperience that results in droning drum lines chased by poorly executed transitions, and a highly repetitive rhythm guitar backdrop that seems largely unnecessary, as if two guitarists were needed to create an inferior rehash of what Nevermore accomplished with half that number. Newly recruited second guitarist Markus Pohl would go on to do better things with Mystic Prophecy in a couple years, but here he's like a fifth wheel who's spot would be more appropriately filled with a full time keyboardist.

Thankfully Andy Franck's vocals are not comprised of sloppy, bellowing melodrama that robs things of all musical sense, and sour notes are few and far between. But when putting aside any degree of technical proficiency in the vocals, this is largely a stagnate drag of groove work with a slight progressive gloss that is woefully unmemorable, and Franck himself further sinks things by unleashing a stream of incoherent lyrics that turned out to be partially plagiarized from previous Pain Of Salvation work (a very visible scandal at the time that somehow didn't stop this band from torturing everyone for another nine years). The sonic exploits heard on dragging, middle of the road anthems like "Speak My Mind", "Your Blood, My Soul" and "Nothin' Left" see an impassioned vocal display with some sense of melodic charm backed up by musical drivel, and even somewhat more animated efforts like "Moving In Circles" and "Rage Of Violence" that attempt to mix in some occasional Dream Theater elements and kick the tempo up a little just can't seem to do much more than coast musically, cycling through abridged melodic ideas and working off of repeated fragments of what would constitute a full idea out of the original's well.

While some degree of redeemable charm may have existed in Symphorce's sound prior to signing their souls over to Metal Blade, it went clear out the window when this generic mess was passed off as the next great step in power metal's then glowing future. It isn't really so much that the people involved in this album's creation are incapable of doing better, save maybe Dupont who can't seem to write a decent riff to save his own life, but more so a band that was never really able to solidify itself and decided to start chasing trends, as Nevermore's popularity circa 2002 was at its peak and this album all but falls over itself to jump on the same train, to the point of slapping cover art on this thing that looks dangerously similar to Nevermore's eponymous debut. But one thing that the majority who love to hate this band and the sad little minority that try to defend them can agree on is that PhorcefulAhead is the quintessential Symphorce album, containing all of the most glaring flaws that made this band a joke in power metal circles. Play it as a cure for insomnia, or play it to prove that one can inflict headaches upon himself at will, but don't approach it expecting something that is remotely fun or interesting.

The name Symphorce is a combination of the words "symphony" and "force".

Taken from the additional notes of the band's page on this site, a quite hilarious quote that would by itself serve fine for a review of this sad excuse for a prog/power album. Far from an accurate musical description, yet somehow so very telling anyway.

I'll just be up front here: PhorcefulAhead is an anemic, disjointed and directionless turd. Looking at the other reviews on this site, everyone else seems to hate or at best be lukewarm on their other stuff too – how did these guys have a career spanning seven albums? Vocalist Andy Franck always had his other gig in the far superior Brainstorm, and I can't see why he stuck with this outfit too for so long. Maybe it's because he's the founder of this band and it's an ego thing. Symphorce are clearly going for a heavier sort of Euro-power sound, so let's start with the guitars: repetitive, unimaginative, poorly played even. The sound is very downtuned and the riffs are of a more groove metal variety than you'd expect for power metal, sounding a bit like a poor man's Nevermore ("Inside Four Walls" is directly aped on one song), with all flair and conviction stripped from the playing. The guitar tone (and even drum sound) is weirdly similar to Dream Theater's Awake, but that's mostly where the similarities to that one end, as there's just nothing interesting going on here.

This is an almost constant mid-paced affair throughout and drags like all goddamn hell. Prog/power isn't a genre overall marked by speed, but this album just feels super slow even for the style because of said sluggish, unenergetic guitars and no eventful or interesting drumming there to help. Keyboards and other melodic arrangements don't stand out in a big way either and the songwriting as whole also does little to pick up the slack. Sometimes you get the odd cool sounding bit like in opener "Speak My Mind", one of the sadly few things I've heard recall Soilwork's Natural Born Chaos (released just months earlier) in the use of keyboards. But even then, not much care is taken to connect the parts logically in a way that naturally propels the songs forward. What you end up with is mostly strings of random ideas, the songs feeling like they're there just to be songs, with no real drive or purpose behind them. No identity of any kind is ever evident in Symphorce's music.

Because they feel so divorced from their respective songs, the choruses on this record end up robbed of most of their power. This is especially problematic because the band makes a really big deal of them: they're mostly presented as if they were these big, powerful climaxes, often with hefty vocal layering, but again, they fall flat without any real foundation beneath them. Powerhouse vocalist Andy Franck puts some effort into his work, but does not save this material and may in fact make it a little worse by pretending that there's more going on here than there actually is, with awkward results. His pleasantly Harry Conklin-like, if at times somewhat unnuanced singing feels more at home in the more straightforward power act Brainstorm, and a more subdued performance would have suited this music better.

"Phorce" suggested by band and album name both; precious little shown. This is not an outright unpleasant listen and very little here really screams "BAAAAD!!!", but a thorough exercise in mediocrity and lifelessness it is all the way. I guess PhorcefulAhead and this band in general fail in a kind of interesting and unusual way for power metal, but I'm hard pressed to actually recommend listening to any of it. Quite simply, Symphorce were never any good and few mourn their demise. Stay away.

EDIT: I completely forgot about the stolen Pain of Salvation lyrics on this album, a well publicized scandal at the time. Docking five points.